When I was thinking of a makeup peg to try, I was keen to find someone whose skin complexion matches mine. Although there are numerous Filipino celebrities that have the same complexion as I have, I noticed that their makeup looks are too difficult for my mediocre makeup skills. All the eyeshadow looks and the highlighter thing overwhelm me to the point of giving up. Again, I want to minimise the time I spend on doing my makeup and I want to stick to that goal. To cut the story short, my search for a new makeup peg led me to look for Filipino paintings for inspiration.
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I discovered Fernando Amorsolo, not through his works, but through the street named after him. My childhood days were filled with conversations about the street close to where we live. For a while, I thought Amorsolo was just a random street name until I saw a statue of him in ... you guessed it right, Amorsolo St. Seeing that statue was when I realised that Amorsolo was a man's name- to be exact, a painter's name. But it wasn't this discovery that made me an admirer of his works. My appreciation for his works began when I was beating the blues one afternoon inside the halls of Yuchengco Museum. To occupy my mind with things other than the blues, I took notes of everything I've observed from his works- a very museum thing to do. Anyway, that was the first time I became really interested to look at paintings because I used to just look at paintings for several seconds and move on to the next one. (I guess that's one of the pitfalls of going to museums, there's so much to look at that our brains can't keep up. Sorry brains.)
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Amorsolo's works are known for its idyllic interpretation of Filipino life in the countryside. It's kind of similar to the idea of cottagecore expect that his works were made several decades before cottagecore even became a thing. Just like the cottagecore trend, where people dress in flowy outfits and live a very quiet life, the works of Amorsolo showcase the same qualities. His works would make you want to leave the city and live peacefully somewhere far and away from the noise of it. Sadly, the countryside life depicted in his works are far from reality, which is another point of discussion, so I'll just leave everything here.
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Making this blogpost, I learned that throughout his career, Amorsolo painted lots of women whose facial features are similar to that of an ordinary Filipina. When I was searching for his work to include for this post, I did not feel alienated because the Filipinas of his works look like me. Furthermore, the women of Amorsolo's idyllic countryside had minimal makeup look with emphasis on the cheeks and glowing complexion- two things I love about makeup.
For this makeup peg, I want to focus on the placement of the blush which is one of my struggles since I tend to place it on parts of my face that don't complement to my face's shape. Second, I want to try and recreate the women's minimal brow look- a little different from my previous makeup peg's emphasis on brows. As for the lips, I will stick to a pink or nude lip color so as not to overpower the blush.